The field of the present disclosure relates generally to aircraft construction, and more particularly to methods and systems for use in assembling an aircraft fuselage.
At least some known fuselage assemblies are manufactured using panelized construction using a plurality of barrel sections that include a combination of longerons, stringers, bulkheads, and frames. The longerons, stringers, bulkheads, and frames reinforce the skin of the aircraft and maintain a rigid cross-sectional shape of the fuselage. Moreover, manufacturing aircraft components requires thousands of fasteners. The fasteners are used to couple the substructure components to the skin of the aircraft and couple adjacent barrel sections together. For example, in known assemblies where barrel sections are joined end to end, it is known to bond the ends of the barrel sections together and to use fasteners to prevent the barrel sections from separating from each other.
Recently, at least some known aircraft components have increasingly been fabricated from composite materials in combination with other materials such as aluminum, titanium, and steel. The composite materials generally reduce the weight of the aircraft leading to increases in the fuel efficiency of the aircraft. However, in at least some known fuselages assembled from composite materials, single piece barrel sections are fabricated and coupled together end to end in a manner that is similar to that of a traditional fuselage barrel assembly.
Coupling traditional and composite barrel sections together requires accurately drilling holes for the fasteners. Accurately drilling fastener holes may be a time consuming and laborious task that in some cases may account for up to at least half of the total manufacturing time for fuselage barrel section assembly. Moreover, the drill holes may require deburring prior to fasteners being used. Elimination of the fasteners facilitates reducing overall weight of the finished assembly. Furthermore, using thousands of fasteners increases joint weight and may increase the amount of stress induced to the joint.